Nuking Europa, Nukes and other 'futuristic' ideas for exploring Europa |
Nuking Europa, Nukes and other 'futuristic' ideas for exploring Europa |
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Newbie ![]() Group: Members Posts: 12 Joined: 5-December 05 Member No.: 597 ![]() |
Hi all! In my opinion, Europa explorer must be cheap and simple.
It must consist of 5 parts - 2 orbiters, 3 small and robust landers, and 3 nuclear and termonuclear bombs. I think that 10 Kt - 100 kt - 1 Mgt sequence is optimal. First orbiter is robust, high protected from radioactivity, armed device. On high orbite over Europe With simple and primitive long focused camera, laser-radar. It must to spectacle and record all nuclear explosion parametres. has also a radio recever from landers. second orbiter is orbiting low over the Europe. It must to fly over epicenter of nuke and drop lander to measure and see all. To defend more complex second orbiter from radioactivity rays of nuclear explosion, we struck and explode a nuke in another side of Europe Why nukes? Because it reveal all. First one, we"ll have a great quake of Europe. And can record all seismic infomation without landers. next one. we can to melt ice and see a clear water - just hollow in the crust!!! at 3 rd. We dont need a special lander. If we can melt great hollow in crust - we'll have a liquid water to catch our lander! We dont need airbags, rockets. Just an robust "lander" like small susmarine!! 4 th. we ll have great cloud of water vapour and ice to take from there any chemical information. |
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Guest_Richard Trigaux_* |
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SergeyVLazarev,
I like very much your enthusiasm about using simple rugged probes and do things in an bold efficient way. But the idea of using nukes seems simply innacceptable for me, for many reason, that I shall not explain in details here, see the Greenpeace forum. Anyway, as others here explained, a high velocity impactor (or a series of several at different distance of only one seismometre) yelds largely enough power to test the inner structure of Europa, as it was tested on the Moon. A simple piece of metal (heated by a chemical reaction, so that it will self-sterilize before hitting) can be released by the main probe and do the job. More, an atom bomb will produce a large cloud of steam and snow, a temporary atmosphere, as it was experienced with Deep Impact, which is likely to blurr all the observations. Anyway the largest fireballs obtained to date with nukes are still much smaller than Europa crust. Your remarks as what it is useless to search for life until we know the chemical composition of the water is relevant. But what is relevant too is that the first Europa lander is already many years ahead, so what to speak of a SECOND Europa lander! Likely most of us will not see it in our lifetime. So I think it is wiser to send something able to do chemical analysis AND life search (the best guess for the latest purpose are a microscope and some mass spectrometre). If the chemical analysis prove this water unsuitable for life, at least we know it. (But we do not know exactly what is "suitable for life", so a chemical analysis alone is not enough and will left dougts and hopes. What to conclude, for instance, if we find the PH of lemmon juice? The only thing which could delay us is that we need to know WHERE to land, and aim precisely. With my opinion there are just many places to land (everywhere where there is reddish ice) but I doubt there will be a rover for the first landing (why not?) so that we must know PRECISELY where to land. This could be done at time of the 6 preleminary close encounters with Europa, before actually landing. I guess, after your name, that you may be Russian (welcome!) so I risk some question: what could be a Russian participation to such a mission? (My idea is that probes will have to be more and more international, for various technical, political and philosophical reasons, and just consider childish the idea of a probe being the flagship of ONE country). Russian hardware has a reputation of being simple and rugged (at least what was not spoiled by blunders in the "soviet" era). Important note added afterward (a bit after Tuesday December 6, 04:07 PM) This thread was initially in a thread about Europa orbiter. This thread was moved to "nuking Europa" afterward. But I would have never involved in such a thread knowing this new title! This post has been edited by Richard Trigaux: Dec 6 2005, 04:33 PM |
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